Sunday, August 08, 2010

Current bedside reading are the annual Department of State Country Reports on Terrorism. The National Counterterrorism Center typically provides statistical data for the annual reports. It appears that the earliest publicly available data set published on kidnappings of U.S. citizens is 2005.

The most recent Country Reports on Terrorism for 2010 from the Department of State was issued on August 18. There were no reported kidnappings in 2010 - which is surprising because defense contractor Issa T. Salomi was kidnapped on January 23, 2010 and then later released.

So far, I have been unable to locate the US State data for 2008. It's listed in the 2008 Index as being in Chapter 7 of the report, but it's just not there.

The annual NCTC report, The 2008 Report on Terrorism of April 30, 2009, contains a pie chart, Chart 14 - US Citizen Terrorism Kidnappings by Country on page 32. It cites 4 kidnappings in Afghanistan and 1 in Panama. No mention of Iraq.

However, one news report about the abduction of Issa T. Salomi in early 2010 cited a previous kidnapping of an American citizen in the summer of 2008. See Officials confirm kidnapping of U.S. contractor in Iraq By Ernesto Londoño and Leila Fadel, Washington Post, February 6, 2010.TERRORISM KIDNAPPINGS OF PRIVATE U.S. CITIZENS IN 2007

Statistical information within the report comes from the Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS) of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). WITS is searchable and open to the public.

NCTC issues an annual report. The report "contains details about incidents of violence against civilians and non-combatants (including military personnel and assets outside of war-like settings) from publicly available information."

WITS maintains a detailed database of incidents. Methodology and definitions are explained in its most recent report from April. In fact, the report is worth reading just for its detailed description of just what they consider to be an act of terrorism.National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Report on Terrorism
Office of the Director of National Intelligence
National Counterterrorism Center, Washington, DC
April 30, 2010

A fascinating side note is that the Department of Defense has a very different definition of terrorism, one that apparently is not universally accepted outside of the DOD.

Kirk von Ackermann

Missing In Iraq

Ryan G. Manelick

On December 14, 2003, his colleague, Ryan Manelick (right) was gunned down shortly after leaving Camp Anaconda also near Balad, Iraq. Both worked for the same contractor, Ultra Services of Istanbul, Turkey.